


The Man in My Head

by moroder



Category: The Stanley Parable
Genre: Gen, Multiple Endings, Self-Harm, Serious Injuries, mostly from Stanley's perspective, sort of PTSD, the tw tags are only for one chapter, walking on a thin line of bromance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-08-29 20:05:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 16,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16750699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moroder/pseuds/moroder
Summary: A few moments ago, he was sitting in a bus, heading for his routine job… Where did all that go?A fic based on the Russian 2009 movie with the same title. Spoilers for most endings, of course.





	1. Initialization

**Author's Note:**

> this fic was translated from Russian, see the original here: https://ficbook.net/readfic/7481213
> 
> most of the Narrator's ingame quotes are likely inaccurate as I was translating them from Russian subtitles back into English. I didn't aim for precise replication of his speech though, it's sort of chinese whispers haha  
> i also re-read this thing from time to time and find more and more mistakes, forgive me i am slowly but steadily fixing them

**_Do you know what it’s like to start anew?_**  
_This ain’t my wish to know, it's coming from the ads along the road. I never actually cared about things like this._  
  
_Someone is probably driven insane with instability in their life, and it’s most definitely not me. I remember some punster calling me most settled employee of the year. I never went on a vacation, that’s just how it happened. Olivia was angry… she’s always angry if something doesn’t go as she’s planning it to be. Women…_  
_Right now, as well, she averts her gaze. That’s okay, when she visits her new working place, she’ll feel better. I hope…_  
  
The bus trailed along the highway, sometimes coming out of the faster cars’ way. However dull the ‘new life’ advertisement was, it remained the only thing to stare at outside. These were the thoughts of a massive boss-like man in a suit, sitting by a window in the middle of the bus.  
He didn’t think about vacations, a woman named Olivia and starting anew. He thought instead about hot coffee, the smell of freshly printed documents and scratching of a ballpoint pen.  
  
The bus was somewhat crowded. Somewhere among these people, a married couple resided; the woman was upset with her husband’s behavior, and he had no idea what to do about it. It wasn’t a surprise though. To cut his wife’s reproaching glances, he turned to the window and began counting billboards alongside the road.  
Counting to twenty-four, he turned back; but his spouse was still out of peacemaking way. He sighed and wanted to return to his previous deeds, but his attention was drawn to a guy near the bus exit. A crowd formed there, as they’ve almost reached a stop. The weird guy was looking for something in his bag; then a loud hissing sound exploded, like a punctured bike tire.

A moment later, only rumble remained in one’s ears, the space around turned into something infernal, and the husband was burned with insufferable heat. He tried to get up from his seat but was blown away and imprinted into the window.  
  
And it put an end to his adventures.

***

  
  
_This is the story of a man named Stanley._  
  
If he could think, he would wonder: “What the hell, how come someone knows my name?”

But he was too disoriented to even come to such thought. A few moments ago, he was sitting in a bus, heading for his routine job… Where did all that go?  
  
_Stanley worked in a big company where he was Employee №427._  
  
Exactly, he thought. Number was a perfect thing to describe his incredibly complex profession.

As if reading his mind, the invisible narrator went on.  
  
_His job was simple - sitting in his office pushing buttons. Others would consider this job tiresome but Stanley could spend twenty-four hours a day doing this._  
  
Slowly but steadily, his broken conscience retrieved something more useful than confusion. Some person knows various points of his life: his name and sort of job. Might that person also be able to explain where the man had found himself?  
  
_And Stanley was happy._  
  
The next part about disappeared colleagues and instructions for examining the empty office went past Stanley. Completely different things to think over occupied his mind.  
I was in a goddamn bus. Yes, I headed to the place I visit every week for six years already. Olivia was with me. Then something happened, and now I’m… Why does my head hurt so much?

The last thought made him rub the back of his head. Touching it, Stanley’s fingers found nothing but a heap of dark slightly curly hair. What’s supposed to hurt, he asked himself but didn’t have time to answer.  
  
_Stanley decided to beat his highscore in sitting in one place and not obeying the instructions. Bravo! His highscore equals two hours and thirty-one minute._  
  
The voice wasn’t talking from speakers, radio or telephones. It sounded awfully close, as if its owner stood behind Stanley or lived inside his head. Holding on this thought, he turned around several times, trying to catch a glimpse of his neighbor, but to no avail. The only remaining version was a transmission directly to his hearing. He still didn’t know what to do with it, but he decided to give in to the voice’s will. If he knows where to go, why not?  
  
_Oh, it’s only forty minutes this time. But that didn’t put Stanley off. Highscores can wait. Now he needed to make his way to the meeting room. Perhaps the answers waited for him there, at the table among all the coffee mugs._


	2. First Glance

The office looked remarkably like his own. His workplace, however, lacked numbers on desks and doors; they were just put around the office, following some scheme.  
Stanley took another step towards the next open door in front of him, but a silent creak made him turn around: his office door closed. On its own? Or did someone close it?.. There was no wind to do so, and Stanley came back to the door and pulled the handle. Locked. Room №427 no longer wanted him present inside.  
  
He really wanted to take a closer look at the office. It looked so distantly familiar but somewhat plastic at the same time, as if it’s been created especially for him, for this time and place. Stanley even wondered if he was an actor, and everything around was a movie he has to play a role in. Perhaps the main one. Then the voice in his head gained a simple explanation: it was a prompter… but how was he supposed to give him information? Earpieces?  
  
_Stanley was shocked with the emptiness of his office. Where did everyone suddenly disappear? Why didn’t they warn or call for him? He needed to find at least someone, and the meeting room seemed like an ideal place._  
  
The voice still sounded soft, like a storyteller on his own story. His tone was quite convincing, and Stanley thought that the office really was a waste of time, and he should better get going and find the people of this place. Then, he walked towards the open door.  
  
All doors but the already open ones were locked. Stanley checked them for it, trying to find at least someone behind. But the voice was right so far: no one was present. Empty silent corridors; the only source of sound was the office employee himself, walking and breathing quietly. And, of course, the doors magically closing behind his back. Maybe that was a remotely operated feature?..  
  
_When Stanley came to a set of two open doors, he entered the door on his left._  
  
He lost himself in thoughts and didn’t notice how he came to a crossroad. That’s right, a large room with two exits out of it, because the door he came out of closed instantly. Stanley was distracted and didn’t hear another portion of advice, but he got the last and very important word: _left_. Well, he thought, if I’m an actor down here, let’s play the whole role. Maybe then I’ll figure out what’s happened to me. He made a deep breath and entered the left door.

Of course, it closed immediately behind him. It was somewhat easy to get used to things like this. The meeting room was supposed to be around this corner…  
  
_Yet there was not a single person here either. Stanley decided to go to his boss’ office, hoping to find an answer there._  
  
Stanley couldn’t remember the last time the meetings at his work were different from “do this, do that, return one week later”. This office clearly had more interesting things to discuss. But he decided to let all this slip, as this wasn’t his primary target right now. The voice said something about the boss… and as the door didn’t let him out, there was only one way to go – the next one.  
As the voice led him up the stairs, Stanley ran up, jumping every other step on it. He, though, didn’t really hope for his colleagues to all gather here and throw him a birthday party. By the way, he didn’t know the date; perhaps it was already his birthday.   
  
_Stepping into the director’s office, Stanley was astonished with the absence of any living soul. He began wondering who might’ve set up all this, what horrible secrets did this place hold?_  
  
The voice was somewhat right: the employee didn’t know what was going on, though he thought about not losing his colleagues but rather about the place he was in. He also thought about the fact that he’d only been in his boss’ office once during his career, at the first day of work. And his office didn’t look like this one at all – no red walls and alcohol bottles along the shells. Their boss was just like all of them, a regular workaholic. The local one probably wasn’t about all that.  
  
The voice said something about a keypad and a code for input… Stanley brought himself back and listened. 2-4-8-5? No, 2-8-4-5. He lifted his hand and pressed the buttons. All events around him seemed so unreal and unnatural, and Stanley’s own hands and fingers felt synthetic to him, as if he didn't use them to type for all those years of work. But he wrote it off as a shock condition. Maybe it was his makeup.  
Meanwhile, the voice was stunned with Stanley being so lucky to guess the correct code… told by the prompter. The employee decided to put his amazement aside and take it for granted. He got used to the voice, and getting used to stuff it said was easier. Even the surrounding events stopped shocking him that much, as he decided to abstract and skip the part where the fireplace replaced itself with a maintenance corridor, and the voice invited – no, _led_ him there. And even as Stanley stepped on the lift and pressed a huge red button, the voice didn’t stop him. So he was doing everything correct. As prescribed.  
  
The following events only reinforced the employee’s guesses about being at a filming set. The decorations were a little too real though, using a minimum of special effects. It looked neat without any effects, as a matter of fact. At some moment he even thought himself to be inside a movie. That the screens around him were made with computer graphics. But how could he end up here? Virtual reality?

He held onto another guess. The voice in his head was a guide and Stanley was a player under his accurate guidance. Usually though, games don’t tell you how to beat it in such an obvious way… wait, what was the last time he played a game? Probably back in his childhood. But quest puzzles in his time contained little to no hints to help the player. That’s the point, make the player think out all the stuff on their own.

   
_His duty, his responsibility was to stop this horrific place and everything it symbolized._  
  
Maybe that was a new genre of entertainment for those not willing to agonize themselves with thinking.

Stanley made a deep breath and looked up at the ceiling, hoping to see the ones watching him. But no one appeared, just like before.

He held his breath, swung his arm and hit the OFF button with all his force.  
  
As soon as he did, he immediately regretted using so much force. Perhaps he needed to be more careful, because the lights going out clearly weren’t a sign of anything positive.

But these were only his worst fears.  
  
_Was it over?_

 _Yes! He overthrew the system, freeing himself from the oppression. Freedom was so close._  
  
Slowly, a massive door started opening, being almost the size of the screen that had the “AWAITING INPUT” words on it minutes ago. The voice kept talking about his emotions and inner condition… Stanley didn’t listen. Behind the door, a string of blue sky opened, then some telegraph poles… Freedom, as the voice said. So close, at arm’s length.

The truth was, his emotions were still being explained. Not really a freedom, one might say.  
  
The endless door disappeared completely into the floor, showing outside world in its whole, and Stanley made his first step…  
First and last one, as the game took him and led forward without his will. But he wasn’t so interested in its working principles. This game, completing itself with a tiny bit of his cooperation, was almost over, and it was time to go.  
  
_This is how everything was supposed to happen._

 _And Stanley was happy._  
  
Bright neon skies blinded him, and he closed his eyes…

 

  
  
  
…to wake up a moment later in front of his computer.


	3. Exploration

For a tad of time, he sat in a dazed condition, staring at the blinking green cursor. His eyes couldn’t adjust to the office shade after seeing the sky, and only the green horizontal underscore was slowly bringing Stanley back.  
  
But… freedom?..  
Hadn’t he just beaten the game? Does it refuse to let him go until he completes it as needed? But he obeyed the voice at all costs, how could he fail…  
And was it worth entrusting the voice with his decisions?  
  
All this time, Stanley was thinking without any fear of anyone eavesdropping his mind. But now he cut his trail of thought abruptly. What if the voice could not only tell him about his future actions but also peek inside his mind?  
He waited for the voice to confirm or deny it. But nothing followed. It seemed to be waiting for Stanley to leave his office.  
  
What if I don’t leave, he thought suddenly. Eventually the ones responsible for this game will come down and pick him up, so there’s nothing to worry about. He just has to wait.  
He stood up from his seat and shut the door №427 with a powerful swing of hand. The voice followed immediately.  
  
_But Stanley simply couldn’t handle the pressure._  
  
It was partially right. The employee was downright shocked by his surroundings, who'd be able to make weighted and thoughtful decisions in this atmosphere? He just needed to rest and sit alone with himself and his mind. But the voice kept talking, and it kind of became a problem.  
Stanley wanted to say out loud “please shut up, I need to concentrate”, but found out, to his surprise, that he could not. As if a channel that usually turned air into sounds has been blocked. His non-existent prompter fell silent, as if hearing his silent demands.  
Sadly, that was an illusion.  
  
Once again sitting on a chair that he got up from several minutes ago, Stanley thought that, perhaps, he shouldn’t have drunk so much coffee this morning. Or that Olivia had sipped him something hallucinogenic and he couldn’t stop fantasizing now. He’d have to ask her once it’s all over.  
  
This time Stanley decided to disobey every single thing the prompter said. Despite the employee turning the wrong direction at the crossroad, the voice justified his choice by willing to visit the employee lounge. Stanley had no such wish until he’d seen the room with his own eyes. It was in fact very calm and cozy, a nicely decorated room with vending machines. Coming closer, Stanley looked through the goods and sighed. Only different brands of soda, prohibited for him.  
The employee lounge was insufferably nice, but he didn’t plan to stay here for long. The man still wanted to get home. So he headed for the exit.  
  
_But eager to get back to business, Stanley took the first open door on his left._  
  
And Stanley didn’t. He glanced at it and went past the open door.  
  
_Stanley was so bad at following directions, it’s incredible he wasn’t fired years ago._  
  
By this moment, he set his mind on the version of being inside a game. A well-made one that can guess some of his actions and direct him where it needs him to go. The very fact of being lectured by the game seemed so funny to Stanley. Absolutely ignoring the warning by a cargo lift, he stepped onto it and tilted as the construction started moving.  
  
_Look, Stanley, I think we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot here. I’m not your enemy, really, I’m not._  
  
It wasn’t hard to trust it. But Stanley was captivated by disobeying, so he completely disregarded everything the voice was trying to tell. That’s why he waited for the lift to come above a catwalk and jumped down, barely landing.  
  
_Wha- really?! I was in the middle of something, do you have zero consideration for others?_  
  
The voice wanted to show him something beautiful. Something nice. Just trust it. Now it became clear that it wasn’t a movie and the voice wasn’t a prompter. Maybe a game world guide, a little too insisting in the matter of guiding.  
  
_Now listen carefully, this is important. Stanley walked through the red door._  
  
Despite the employee disobeying him completely, the voice maintained a storytelling form and used past tense in hope for Stanley to finally pay attention. Stanley even thought to enter the recommended door for a second but decided to stay on the path of a misbehaving child.

***

  
  
This time, after all he went through, he was happy to end up in front of a screen again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> initially I wanted to play out Stanley's phenylketonuria somehow in following chapters, but in the end it just remained a feature showing that Stanley was still a living person, not a character in the story, I guess.


	4. Don't

With every attempt to get himself out Stanley realized that he was only digging his grave deeper.  
He tried following the voice in hope for something to change, that it’s not stuck in a loop, but none of the attempts succeeded. The light of blue skies after turning off the Mind Control wasn’t so bright and appealing anymore. Looked more like blinding light of cold office lamps. And the blowing wind no longer felt on his skin, and the open air… was pretty much the same as it was inside. Autosuggestion played tricks on his mind at the first try.  
  
He also tried to make new decisions, resulting in other deviations from the main plot. These were so serious that one time Stanley went insane and died. For him, the game ended right there, but he felt like it wasn’t the end, as if the voice was supposed to tell him something else to finish the story.  
  
During several attempts at beating the game that Stanley witnessed, he noted something for himself. First, he was the only character. As he died, the game started anew, and he saw no signs of anyone else in the building. It could be that the game ran a parallel process for someone else, but this one story with this very voice was personal for him.  
  
The voice inescapably became an object of his reflection. It never hinted on its owner to be found somewhere or being anywhere at all – existing at very least, not as Stanley’s hallucinations. Judging by some of its words, the voice owner was this world and story maker, and the employee was playing a lead role here. The guide wasn’t perfect: in one of the stories he got confused with his own script and turned the events inside out, leading himself to the terrific “confusion ending”. By the moment it happened, Stanley stopped gauging things adequately and just waited to be returned to starting position; the voice, on the other hand, was implacable and didn’t want to submit to a script that came out of nowhere. But he had to. A narrator who fell to the trap of his own story and became a part of it.

That’s what Stanley decided to call him. The Narrator.

  
  
It seemed like a whole week passed. His trips to find the ending were always different in term of time measuring, and the clocks were insufficient to keep a track of time: they all showed the same time each restart.  
Although Stanley had already spent a fair amount of time down here, he still hadn’t explored every possible thing. He knew that perfectly. But some irrational part of him hoped that something has changed back there, in well-known areas. He gave in to that.

By thirteenth – or fourteenth? – time, opening his eyes in front of a computer, Stanley decided to move on. So he set on giving up the story at the final step.  
  
It wasn’t hard to reach the end again. The Narrator was fully aware that his ward and character has been there before and didn’t even require a code to go on, opening the doors as soon as Stanley entered the director’s office. And his words following the ‘shocking’ facts unraveling to the employee once again… They were the same. An actual script.  
  
Stanley was so tired of all this. Whereas previously he thought his work to be monotonous, being stuck in this loop now made him realize that the loop made the plot monotonous. No matter how interesting it actually was.  
Ending up in front of a fateful choice once again, Stanley pressed the ON button carefully, unlike the first time.  
  
_Oh, Stanley. Did you just activate the mind control?_  
  
Yes, he wanted to yell, yes, that’s exactly what I did! I want to change something, I want things to happen by my desire! I want something you’re not ready for!

Unfortunately, his voice was still out of reach, and the Narrator was well too ready for this course of action. Of course, these two versions were the most thought out in the whole scenario. He was most proud of them.  
  
As the room lit up with red, Stanley realized he had nothing to hope for here. The only thing he got out of this place was to hear some new words from the Narrator. Maybe there’s going to be something useful in them…

Maybe he’ll tell why he’s placed him here. Why he’s keeping him away from home.  
  
Home…  
Everything outside the goddamn office seemed so far and unreal. For split seconds Stanley believed that this is his real life and nine seconds on the timer are all he’s got left. He sighed deeply, completely free from all his thoughts and the voice being so obnoxious.  
  
The Narrator wished him to live happily ever after.

Curious thing.


	5. Neglect

His prophecy came true.  
The explosion changed nothing. Stanley was destroyed with the whole facility back then, but here he was again, with a new chance to start a riot. The game always granted him a chance. Even when it wasn’t fair to.  
  
This time, the man decided that he’s not going to the meeting room anymore. These story versions were most subjected to the Narrator, leaving no sense. Even the path marked as “escape” probably led to a horrible death. The only exit in the Narrator’s script was turning off the mind control. It was such a sole and unique solution that every other answer amounted to reason for immediate termination. Or termination a couple of minutes later, as the script author gloats over you and the situation you created.  
  
One of the things that surprised Stanley so much was the Narrator’s confidence in considering the employee his creation. He talked over absolutely everything about him, as if he designed him from top to bottom without any right to intervene. But Stanley kept his old self, it didn’t go anywhere. He remembered perfectly who he actually was.  
  
He was an office employee in an old logistic company. Every weekday morning he takes bus №7 to get to work. He’s got a wife, her name is Olivia. They’ve been married for almost one year. She’s always been angry with him being constantly busy. She got upset again as they headed to work in the morning this time.  
Did they arrive?  
  
Stanley reflected on this and went wherever his feet took him. He stopped only at the cargo lift as the voice literally yelped to keep him from falling. Then he remembered how hes ended his ride here abruptly when the Narrator was trying to get him somewhere. Why not now? He mentioned some mysterious woman Stanley has neglected. Maybe… he’s had some connection to Olivia? Maybe she was also playing a role in this? Maybe-  
  
A whole hive of thoughts swarmed his mind when he entered the room, and the door closed behind him in usual fashion, leaving him alone in the dark. And then a lightbulb turned on, blinding him with its light and illuminating a small table with a phone on it. An old landline with a number roulette, ringing, piercing his ears.  
  
_She’s been waiting._  
  
Stanley knew only one woman he could neglect. And he picked up.

***

  
  
The voice he heard in the next moment didn't belong to Olivia.  
Stanley had no idea whose it was. Too sonorous and happy. None of his colleagues. Whom could he neglect?  
  
It bothered him that the door with a cheerful female voice behind it had the same number that his office did. And he remained in a place created by the Narrator, although not by his original plans. And he wanted to remind Stanley of someone, he… was up to something again.  
The employee could see it now, as the door opened, showing a white mannequin. With female breasts. You’re such an asshole, Narrator, he thought.  
  
_Ha ha! Come on, did you think you have a loving wife?_  
  
Stanley clenched his fists.  
  
_Who’d want to spend a life with you?_  
  
If only he could meet the Narrator face to face…  
  
_Come on, step inside. I’ll show you what’s really going on._  
  
He obeyed. Only this time. The mannequin moved to the left, but even in other case he’d shove this smooth white crap aside. The door closed behind him again.  
But this time, something went against the system. Before the voice started talking again, Stanley coughed and looked up at the ceiling, still hoping for his face expression to be seen to the unseen observer. Although the latter saw it without effort.

Stanley opened his mouth, breathed in and…  
  
“I came here for the same thing!” he cried out as loud as he could; his vocal cords became stiff from inactivity and betrayed him at the last words, almost killing his voice. But Stanley was sure it made an effect.  
  
The Narrator fell silent for at least ten minutes. Seemed that this action was way out of his scenario and he was brainstorming to put it into the script without much harm done to the events. Stanley was a bit pleased about this. He wasn’t going to suffer alone from misunderstanding at the end!  
As he tried to pull the door handle for the third time, hoping that the Narrator’s confusion would let him go, the voice came alive.  
  
_Am I reading the situation correctly? I didn’t give you a voice. You are a character with no speech. You were taught to keep silence, you… You must… remain silent._  
“And I’m not silent, now how’s this?” Stanley answered with a grin, louder than the first time.  
_Don’t shout like that, I can hear you perfectly. In fact, too perfectly. I, uh… got used to you being quiet._  
  
The voice sounded somewhat offended. It was understandable: you claim yourself to be the only one to alter your character and then you find out that he changed himself on his own, a sad sight to see. But Stanley’s thoughts were different.  
  
“So. I wanted to say that things aren’t what you’re telling me right now,” he continued, quieter and calmer in tone, as the voice asked. “I have a wife.”  
_Can’t be._  
“It can! Her name’s Olivia. I helped her put on the coat this morning by my own hands.”  
_What morning? What are you talking about? You can’t have a morning, you… You’re nothing!_  
“Now you stop that,” Stanley said, gritting his teeth. “I understand that an office employee isn’t a luxurious profession. But I chose it and you’re not in the right to judge me on that.”

 _You chose?.. No, I chose it for you! Stop thinking yourself to be something special, you’re just… Just a figment of my imagination, getting out of hand. Yes, that’s exactly what you are._  
“No!”

 _Shut up! You can’t talk. You mustn’t talk, and it’ll be alright as soon as I don’t hear you._  
“One doesn’t fix bugs like this!” the man shouted and shook a clenched fist in the air. But no commentary followed. Seemed that the Narrator did in fact cut himself off Stanley, solving his problems temporarily. But the employee didn’t want to stay in this room, and he pulled the door handle. This time, it gave in and opened into the darkness.  
Stanley expected himself to walk into the next room, the door to close and the light to come alive, just like it was some time ago. But the ground disappeared below him, and he fell into complete darkness, undoubtedly towards his death.


	6. Her

In addition to being imperfect, the voice owner seemed to be suffering from restarting his story. When Stanley once again found himself in the telephone room, he noticed one peculiar feature he missed at the first time: the plug. He scowled quietly and pulled it; the phone finally stopped ringing, but the Narrator replaced its annoying sound with his speech.  
  
_Wait, how’d you do that? It wasn’t even a choice… You actually chose incorrectly, I’m…_  
“Stop, now! Shut up about choices, about everything! Let’s have a chat,” Stanley pleaded, looking at the ceiling where the lightbulb was swinging.  
_What… did you just say?_  
  
Oh great, here we go again, the employee thought with displease, turning away. Could the Narrator have forgotten what they talked about half an hour ago? If he remembered, why was he so surprised about Stanley’s speaking abilities?  
  
“Are you surprised? Or upset?” Stanley asked, crossing his hands.  
_Both! How can you… I never gave you such ability, and it wasn’t required… What the hell do you think you’re doing?_  
  
The voice, however, sounded softer than the first time. Maybe the situation disposed this.  
  
“I was trying to tell you the last time that I don’t need anyone to give me abilities. I exist on my own, real, of flesh and blood.”  
_Rubbish. What kind of “last time”? Am I missing something?_  
“I don’t know. I’m surprised you forgot about that…” Stanley shrugged. “Don’t you run the place?”  
_I do. But I really… can’t remember… When did it happen?_  
“Half an hour ago.”  
_B-but… how…_  
“And my restarts, do you remember them?”  
_Which ones? I’ve got something in the debug logs…_  
“All eighteen.”  
_Ei… eighte… what?! Wait, there’s not so many of them at all… What secrets do you keep?_  
“I have no secrets,” Stanley sighed, feeling observed from all angles and required to explain things that were at least one level above his existence.  
  
Papers shuffled. Judging by the sound, the Narrator was trying to find the long-lost rational seed. Not to no avail, perhaps.  
  
_Nonsense. Bullshit, crazy frigging… Have to sleep. Have to quit drinking coffee._  
“I died seven or eight times during my travels through here. Five times I’ve escaped. But every time I return to my office, how? What should I do to stop this?”  
  
Stanley asked questions in the void, not hoping to get an answer. His voice came back for incredibly short and rare moments of time, and he kept shouting questions to let them out of his head into the thick air of the locked telephone room.  
The Narrator was silent. Maybe he was offended by his question “what should he do to stop this”. Maybe he was processing information not only about his ward talking on his own but also about not the whole game being under his command. And Stanley was granted a magnificent idea based on this.

He only just needed to head for the exit.  
  
Before all that, he thought this path to be a hoax, a distraction from the OFF button. Now he knew exactly what “escape” meant. How could he miss that…  
Walking along a long dim corridor, Stanley joyfully noted the Narrator’s commentary about going to meet certain death. And as a red glow shined in the way, inviting him over for the final fall, he stepped in without a second thought.

***

  
  
_Farewell, Stanley!_  
  
The container was crushed with a deafening thunderous sound. Stanley was sure he heard the metal press squashing him, it was so close, yet he remained alive. Then he opened his eyes; it seemed that he shut them so tight in the crushing moment that he forgot about it and accepted the darkness.

 ** _“Farewell, Stanley!” cried the Narrator, as Stanley was led helplessly into the enormous metal jaws._**  
  
Yes, he was in fact alive. This was proved by another voice in his head. And he was glad to hear it. The Narrator was the only source of speech in his head, it was time to give someone else a chance.  
  
**_In a single visceral instant, Stanley was destroyed. The machine broke every bone in his body, killing him instantly._**  
  
Alright, now he began worrying. He could argue with the female voice that it’s not that bad, here I am, safe and well! But Stanley's voice retreated, leaving him to cough awkwardly.  
  
**_But in a couple of minutes Stanley will start again in his office, as alive as ever. What was the Narrator trying to accomplish?_**  
  
This question drove the employee crazy. For quite some time. He almost asked the Narrator about it but he wouldn’t be listening to him. He never listened to anyone but himself. Goddamn selfish bastard.  
  
**_When every possible path has been created for you, life becomes meaningless, and so does death. Do you see that Stanley was dead from the very moment the game started?_**  
  
Which Stanley did the female narrator talk about? The man hoped dearly that she meant the fictional one. He wasn’t really hot about the idea of being dead from the beginning. He didn’t even understand how the hell he got here. Could all this have happened because of his route to work? What else has taken place?

The darkness wasn’t pitch black anymore. White lights shone ahead, and Stanley walked towards them in unsteady pace. He had no other way to go anyway. Slowly, the lights fell into letters, and he could read the sign.  
  
“The Stanley Parable”. The Narrator mentioned something similar. This must’ve been… the name of the story he wrote?  
A small gap opened under the words. Stanley increased the pace, hoping to see something nice. This place was way out of the Narrator’s league. He bid farewell to his character, leaving him to die… let it be.  
The employee stepped inside the room, and its whiteness dazzled him. Slowly, his eyes adjusted to the surroundings, but there wasn’t much to observe. Only a table with two chairs…  
  
And **the Woman** behind that table. All dressed in white. Like a doctor working on a case. She sat still and wrote something down on snow white paper, and her hands almost blended with its color.  
  
**_“Stanley Hopkins?”_** she asked, not tearing her gaze from the papers. Stanley could only nod in answer. ** _“Sit down. You are an interesting patient. You and the other one bound to you.”_**  
  
“Bound?” he’d ask. But his voice was completely out of service. Maybe he did in fact lose it, since he couldn’t use it outside of the Narrator’s world…  
  
**_“Your character in the story has been dead for a long time. All the time, in fact,”_** the Woman continued and stopped writing. She put down the pen and looked at Stanley; he suddenly felt very uncomfortable, as if she was looking through his very sinful self but politely kept silent about it. ** _“But_ you _are alive. Currently you are alive and you must take it. Hold onto your life, Stanley.”_**  
  
“Where, where am I? Is this a purgatory?” the man wanted to ask if he had a chance. But the Woman must’ve been reading his thoughts. Perhaps that was her duty for being here.  
  
**_“Purgatory is no match for the place you are at. But you have no direct exit. You can do everything by his words and keep tangling your feet.”_**  
  
Stanley glanced at his hands. He’d only noticed now how pale he was. That was hardly the lighting’s work.  
  
**_“However, you are at the right path. You fight him. It’s good. Make a meaningful choice. Whatever he gives you, throw it away. This is the only way to get out.”_** The Woman finally tore her gaze away from him and pulled away a little. **_“Don’t let time choose for you.”_**  
  
She got up from the table and slowly walked towards one of the walls. Stanley only just noticed a tremendous “RESTART” word along it and a lever just under, locked in OFF position. The Woman put her hand on the handle and looked at the employee; it seemed like – and maybe it was real? – that she smiled with a corner of her mouth.  
  
**_“Good luck,”_**  she said and pulled the lever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stanley's last name is a reference to a Scotland Yard inspector from Sherlock Holmes book series, in case you wondered.


	7. Defiance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings apply for this chapter

Just as Stanley returned to his office №427, he checked for his voice. Still no response. There’s no magic in the world. But what happened to him seconds ago?  
  
The Woman, one level higher than the Narrator and himself. She talked as if reading a script for the Narrator. **_“Farewell, Stanley!” cried the Narrator…_**  Just like him, reading the employee's scenario.  
She told him to fight… she said Stanley was on the right path. Disobey him. Do things he won’t expect.  
  
_All of his co-workers were go- Wait, what are you doing? Put that knife down, it’s for cutting paper, not hands!_  
  
On the very first table he saw, there was a box cutter. Stanley would do with a pencil, but a knife was well above his expectations. He slid the blade out as far as he could, closed his eyes and slashed his shirtsleeve. The cut went dark red along with the blade; Stanley repeated the action and gritted his teeth: this time, the hit was a little more precise, almost making him scream from pain.  
  
_Stanley, Stanley, what are you doing?! Are you out of your mind? The fact that everybody’s gone doesn’t mean- Stanley!_  
  
The sleeve that used to be white was now covered with scarlet stains, and it was somehow amusing to watch. Just a bit ago, his hands were so hecking white that the box cutter did in fact cut them like paper. It looked way better now.  
  
_Stanley… you’re going to hurt yourself like this. Stop when you still can._  
  
The voice seemed to be… worried? Huh, rubbish. The Narrator was always worried only about the scenario going on. That’s what his profession suggested.  
There was no mirror in the office, and if was hard for Stanley’s fading conscience to calculate a perfect trajectory for the knife. But he managed to do that. He held the untouched hand in the air, smiled faintly and swung the box cutter right into his carotid artery.

It went black immediately: the knife didn’t even touch his neck.

***

  
  
On the next restart, he found nothing even slightly resembling piercing objects. Seemed that the Narrator didn’t quite like the taste of his actions, Stanley thought with satisfaction while passing by the tables lacking even pencil containers. How about he strolls along the plot again, but this time somewhere he hadn’t been before? There were clearly places he hadn’t seen, places he could screw up the Narrator’s plans and show him that the employee wasn’t a marionette in his hands.  
  
Stanley did in fact miss one level. Though, to reach it, he had to give in to the voice once, when it asked to choose a red door. A small favor. It seemed to him that the Narrator sounded especially sincere this time, not reading scripted emotions… although he couldn’t be 100% sure about that.  
  
As the Narrator placed him on a landing pad in the middle of something resembling space, it got Stanley’s breath away. Long ago, when he’d first left office №427 and found himself in a room full of displays, he felt the same. A feeling of being so incredibly small, meaning nothing in the world. But this place was somewhat calming, and it wasn’t hard to understand the Narrator’s emotions about it when he said he felt happy in here. He said that he – they – had to stop long ago, so the decision to come down here was absolutely logical.  
  
After approximately one hour of lying down on the floor of this room, Stanley decided it was time to end this. Yes, the sight was quite spectacular. But it wasn’t so diverse, so half an hour was enough to get fed up. During other half an hour he waited for the Narrator to say something about the events around. Stanley still remembered the Woman’s narrative about him and **_that other one bound._** The source of voice in his head hardly wasn’t an enigma, he had to have a story behind his back… he just won’t share it with a fictional character. Even if it’s not a character but a real person. Unrecognized one. Stanley couldn’t even speak in this place because of the Narrator’s control over it.  
Nothing happened no matter how long he waited. Stanley got up from the floor, brushed off the dust from his clothes and looked around. Apart from the apparitions in the dark, there was a grey doorway with a stairway to it, and he headed there. At least something was altering.  
  
_No, wait… where are you going?_  
  
Around the corner, he saw an interesting installment: a few flights of stairs that ended abruptly with a ledge. A convenient place to jump down from, Stanley noted to himself, but the voice knew that as well.  
  
_No! Don’t go up there! If you hurt yourself, if you die, the game will restart! We’ll lose all of this!_  
  
So you don’t want me to go this way? Then I’ll do exactly that, Stanley thought, running through flight after flight. The stairs were left behind very quickly, and he soon came to a platform with a ledge so comfortably ending with a deadly height.  
  
_Please no, Stanley, let me stay here! Don’t take this from me!_  
  
That’s how you’re talking now, huh? You made fun of me so many times, called me names… Stanley came closer to the ledge; he looked down and staggered, making a step back. Down there, it’s certain death. But the Narrator’s last words got stuck in his head.  _Don’t take this from me…_  Stanley didn’t know whether this was his mind playing tricks, or the Narrator made this sentence play over and over in his head until the negligent character becomes sick of it and changes his mind.  
  
No, cut it.  
Stanley frowned and made two determined steps towards death.  
  
_No!_  
  
He was absolutely sure that the height was enough to kill him. But the obvious hasn’t happened, and he landed on his knees with a terrible crunch. Surprisingly enough, the knees were alright, despite the sound.  
  
_Oh, thank God, you lived. I was worried about you… Let’s get back to that other room, please?_  
  
Considering the voice tone, its owner was downright horrified. It was so convincing that Stanley got up from his suffering knees and went towards the space sights station that the Narrator liked so much. Maybe it really was better to stay here…  
  
_See? You want this, and we’re both going to be happy. We absolutely truly will. If we stop… we just need to stop._  
  
If the Narrator’s worried tone lulled Stanley before, these words made him wake up instantly. He made decisions instead of him again. No, no, no, we won’t be happy when you’re trying to lure me into your standards of it, Stanley muttered, not realizing how he was actually talking and the Narrator heard him doing that.  
  
_Stanley… please come back… there’s nothing good that can come from this!_

“Now you’re wrong”, the employee kept mumbling, going up the stairs, “it’s your idea that brings nothing good to the scene.”

 _No… no, no, what are you doing?! Stanley, please don’t take this away from me!_  
  
He kept asking for the same thing so persistently that the man’s blood began boiling. What good have you done for me to make me change my mind? How many times have you killed me, showing your supremacy? Karma is real.  
  
_Do you not just believe me? What can I say to convince you?!_

“Nothing, I need nothing,” Stanley muttered, closing in to the ledge. “Only just freedom I’m fighting for.”  
  
A step forward. A deafening scream of pain, overlapping the crunching sound of breaking bones.  
  
This time, the landing wasn’t entirely painless. Stanley has definitely broken something, according to location of pain, the right leg tibia. Even sitting brought enormous pain to him, and he had to walk with it…

“No,” the employee wheezed, trying to get up. “To submit to you one more time… Huh. It’s always death in the end. Why delay the inevitable.”  
  
Each step was nearly impossible to make. Like a butcher knife in his leg. Though it actually was a broken bone, sticking out at an unnatural angle… How was he able to walk with such trauma? Fierce pain blocked everything but one thing: make it to the platform again.  
  
_Oh my God… is this really how much you dislike my game? That you’re willing to throw yourself from that platform to just get rid of it?_  
  
Stanley hated absolutely everything. His fate for letting him survive the fall and suffer the trauma, the Narrator for… There was a lot to hate him for, hah. Stanley decided to get rid of these thoughts because they only made pain sharper.  
  
_Do you really want to kill yourself to keep me from being happy? Am I reading the situation correctly?_  
  
One more step in the abyss – as “yes”.  
  
_Or you’re just getting a kick out of it. I don’t know anymore. I wanted to get along with you, but you don’t seem to cooperate._  
  
Friendship, love… what was the last time he made friends with anyone? Stanley was lying on the floor in a very poor condition to say at least; this time he’s definitely broken something else. Why was he still alive, why haven’t all these falls ended his existence yet? He tried to get up but yelped sharply, leaning on his left hand. Must’ve really been an unfortunate landing for it.

Gritting his teeth, he slowly crawled towards a wall, trying to avoid injuring anything else in himself; then he attempted to stand up on his undamaged leg. Six and half flights of stairs to live through now…  
  
_Seems that you really wanted to make a choice. Well, this one is yours._  
  
Half an hour of constant suffering, and Stanley made his way to the stairs trampoline, barely holding on one leg. He was some terrific sight to see. Yes, he’d made this choice himself. Absolutely on his own. And he went through all this suffering to just let the Narrator know that he was not overpowered and could easily lose control over his creation.

Stanley pushed away from the handrail and fell down the ledge – fatally this time. The last thing he heard were silent words, full of mournful bitterness for the first time.  
  
_Is it over? It’s going to restart, isn’t it?_

_I’m coming ba-_


	8. Contact

This time, the darkness held Stanley for so long that he became worried: could it be that he’s really died by making a decision on his own?  
But at some point he realized that it wasn’t the void he ended up in but a room with solid dark floor and no light sources. It seemed that the Narrator had simply moved him to a place different from the starting office.  
  
_Stanley. I’ve been thinking over the situation we found ourselves in. I was so absorbed I forgot to place you back at the starting point. But now I know. We need a little heart-to-heart._  
  
A lone lightbulb came alive at the ceiling, and Stanley looked around. A simple locked room… some unattended chairs in the center; he sat down on one of them carefully, waiting for something unusual. What else could the game – or better said, the Narrator bring him?  
  
_Now listen carefully. The thing I’m going to do costs a lot of effort to me. I understand how much you must be hating me and wanting me to go right now… But please, I beg you. For our future. Don’t try to screw everything._  
  
The employee sighed, hearing about “our future”. Despite everything, the Narrator still considered them one. Insufferable devotion.  
  
_Do everything exactly as I say. This is not about endings that you’re looking for by disobeying. I just need a bit of your assistance. Nod if you’re with me._  
  
Stanley squinted but agreed anyway.  
  
_Thank you. The things you do when you’re trying! Now… close your eyes. Shut them tight, so you see nothing at all!_  
  
The lamp light still hit his eyes through the eyelids, and Stanley couldn’t think of anything else but to cover his face with hands. This helped.

He suddenly felt how cold the air became. As if wind came blowing from under a nonexistent door. Stanley shivered, feeling something unreal and ghastly being in this room with him. But he couldn’t do anything without going against the Narrator’s order.  
  
_“Hi, Stanley.”_  
  
The voice suddenly sounded unusually close to his face. It left a highly unnatural feeling; the man couldn’t undo a feeling of having the voice inside his head like an inner voice, a talking conscience, but now…  
  
_“I’m standing right in front of you.”_  
  
The enlightenment hit Stanley in the face, and he wanted to swing his hand and touch him but-  
_“No-no-no, keep it to your face! Please do everything as I said. I’m trying to maintain this form with all possible effort. I have to take away some of your senses for that. Borrow me that little time."_  
  
Stanley had a feeling that the game with its current resource share was simply unable to do the required things, so the Narrator freed unnecessary resources like his vision. But he still had his touch and hearing.  
He jerked from a sudden touch to his hand. As if someone ran the back of their palm on his fingers, tightly squeezed to keep all visible information out of his sight.  
  
_“You’re very… warm. I mean, not just your body, but your inner self. Seems like you really are not the one this story was written about.”_  
Oh come on, it was clear from the beginning, Stanley fumed to himself, fidgeting on his chair. When will you let me go if there’s no sense in keeping me here?  
_“It’s just I have no idea how to bring you home. Moreover…”_ he sighed _. “I don’t know how to come back myself.”_

  
The voice source, being in front of Stanley all the time, moved behind him, and two heavy but soft palms lay down on his shoulders.  
“Where are you?” he thought, hoping the Narrator could really read his mind. “How come you’re stuck with no chance to escape?”

 _"Oh Stanley… I don’t know if you’ll be able to swallow what I’m going to tell you.”_  
  
The voice sounded a bit mocking. The man frowned even though his face couldn’t be seen from under his palms.

_“Sorry. I keep forgetting you’re not artificial.”_

The Narrator sighed deeply. His hands freed Stanley’s shoulders from their pressure, and the employee heard him walking around the room behind his back.  
  
_“I woke up in an empty room. Endlessly big one. Just a table, a pen, a ton of paper and a microphone. I knew I didn’t end up here for nothing. I took a paper sheet and started writing."_  
  
The voice tone was incredibly different from the one Stanley used to hear during his trip through the offices. He was still telling a story but a lot more… sincerely? No posed self-confidence. He was just telling him what’s happened as if nothing special has happened at all.  
  
_“My imagination ran wild. In a blink of an eye I created a story about an office employee named Stanley where he faces disappearance of all his colleagues, finds out that he was controlled with Evil Above and stops the evil. I made the script in a couple of minutes. But then I wondered: what would Stanley do in other cases? I came up with a version of ending where he doesn’t stop the evil but wants to become it instead and gets severely punished. Then I decided to add more non-linearity to keep the creative process going. And so, door after door, I wrote, until I fell down on the table in exhaustion. But I was satisfied. I really wanted to see the script in action. So I began reading it aloud with the microphone."_  
  
According to the sound of voice, the Narrator and Stanley were now almost back-to-back. The employee still sat on the chair, and his interlocutor was leaning against the chair with some part of his body – his head or maybe shoulder.  
  
_“Some time passed, and I’ve realized that reading the text isn’t all that happens. On a separate paper sheet, noted started appearing without any intervention from me. I didn’t remember how they came to life. And they were signed as the “error log”. How does one cope with it? There were some moments, some failures, but the problem was that I completely forgot when I was making them. It’s like the moments of writing them down went erased from my memory.”_  
  
“That’s terrible”, Stanley thought sadly, sighing quietly.  
  
_“You have no idea. But these notes kept getting aggressive… About the character disobeying the creator and infesting the story with elements completely arbitrary. I tried to excuse his talks about former lifestyle by the fact that I wrote the final scenario over the old notes, and my Stanley could adopt memories of his previous deficient version that didn’t make it to release. But that was a mistake. And then I saw the Woman in White.”_  
  
Stanley didn’t notice himself holding breath upon her mention.  
  
_“She looked pretty much like a ghost… A bridge between worlds, maybe. I was looking through my notes when I felt someone watching me. She stood there, looking at me… quite worried. But she didn’t say anything or come closer. She just turned around and left, disappeared in the void. I watched her go before I remembered that my character has just jumped to his death and I needed to get him back on track._  
_And so I’m sitting here in this temporary state for an incredibly long amount of time. I haven’t been able to fully understand your nature, Stanley. Why would the error log suddenly start filling up with entries about your misbehavior?.. I must’ve forgotten most of the walkthroughs you’ve performed. But something’s changed the last two times. I remember every single thing."_  
  
Suddenly Stanley became incredibly ashamed for himself. For all gross stuff he’s done to make the game restart. To see the Narrator's reaction upon his suicide…  
  
“What… is your name?” he asked silently, unexpected for himself and for the Narrator, it seemed, because he was walking circles around the room and stopped after this question.  
_“I… I don’t remember. Why do you need it?”_  
“I don’t know… it’s more convenient to use a name while talking to someone… although I don’t really care anymore. Please… forgive me.”

“ _Wha… Why? What have you done?”_  
  
The voice was exceedingly startled, and it brought Stanley further into stupor. “For all your endings I've ruined, for my attempts to kill myself when I thought there’s no other way out…”  
  
A couple of rapid steps in his direction, and strong soft hands grabbed employee’s shoulders.  
_“How can I accuse you of anything like that? It would simply be mean to do so. You’re in a wrong time and place, how could that be your fault? Come on.”_  
“But your game…"  
_“Stanley…"_  
  
He let go of his left shoulder, and the same soft hand covered his palms, still hiding his face.  
_“Don’t think about it. You need a rest. It’s going to be alright. You just…"_

 _Wait._  
  
Stanley heard distant rumble from the talker’s side, as if the rumble was broadcasted along with his voice.  
_“Something’s wrong…”_  
“What’s going on?” Stanley whispered hoarsely, breaking his prohibitions. But the Narrator didn’t care. He was occupied with something else.  
_“I… I'll be back soon, Stanley. Stay here, okay? I will come back!”_  
  
His voice grew weaker, like a sound caught by wind and carried away, far away from this enclosed space… off for good.  
  
_I will come back for you._  
  
Stanley didn’t stand that and tore his palms away from his face, eyes wide open. A sound of crashing glass rang; the lightbulb above him exploded, drowning everything in blackness.  
  
He had nowhere to go. A warm feeling of having another living human in the room dissolved in the darkness along with hope for a happy ending.

He should have aimed for the “freedom ending” once again instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought about how the Narrator would place himself in a room along with Stanley and why it'd be so resource demanding. Guess that's because he would try really hard to put himself down to the character level who's not a character at the same time, so that would be pretty hard in sense of understanding the scene and breaking his own restrictions, so...


	9. Limbo

Eternity seemed shorter in duration than his oblivion. Stanley forgot when was the last time he moved any part of his body; since the lights went out, he got down on the floor, took the pose of a giant “X” and went with the flow.  
  
_I will come back!_  
  
These words resonated in his head for many hours after being uttered. Stanley remembered them time after time in hope that this mantra will help the Narrator come back and guide him here like a beacon.  
  
_I will come back for you._  
  
But time passed, and the empty closed box with the employee inside remained stagnant. When he tried even briefly to think about the Narrator’s fate, headaches attacked him, so he preferred to throw himself into merciless hands of void. After all, nothing happened to him for so long. A few more hours won’t hurt. A few days. Weeks. Months.  
  
How much time had passed since he went to work and ended up here?  
And he wasn’t just going to work, he… He was accompanied by someone. A woman by his side. Girl next door… childhood friend… colleague… sister… his wife? Did he have a wife? What was her name?..  
She was awfully upset with him… Why? For his dedication and reluctance to waste spare time on something else?  
He’d seen a weird guy with a thick shoulder bag… He was rummaging through his stuff and then…  
_explosion?_  
  
Events of the past came alive in Stanley’s head, as if he’s just lived through them. An endless grey highway, a bus full of people, identical billboards. A guy who blew himself up in the middle of a rush hour. He was thrown away, hit his head on something…  
And ended up here.  
  
That’s right…

  
**_When every possible path has been created for you, life becomes meaningless, and so does death._**  
  
Stanley opened his eyes.  
  
Above him, the Woman towered over, absolutely white. He didn’t remember her face previously, and now it was hovering in front of him like a white spot with only a thin mouthline. She knelt near the employee, ran her hand across his forehead and sighed sympathetically.  
  
**_Time to return to the real world, Stanley. Where no one had predetermined your fate several moves ahead._**  
  
She took out a thin flashlight that looked more like a pen, clicked it and seemingly started to check the man’s pupillary response. He was almost instantly blinded, and he didn’t see the Woman in white anymore – only the opaque whiteness. As if someone’s inverted the void around him that he thought to have spent eternity in.  
  
No. No, wait, what about… What about their agreement? What if he really comes back and doesn’t find Stanley at the same place?.. What if he’s disappeared because something’s happened to him…  
Where else shall he look for the Narrator but here?  
  
Where… where…  
  
_Where…_  
  
He didn’t notice when the surroundings turned less white and more greyish blue instead. It wasn’t the Woman shining a flashlight in his eyes anymore but an unfamiliar dark-haired woman dressed like a nurse. She was speaking something, perhaps, soothing, but Stanley couldn’t make it out. For him, the world around was underwater, muting sounds; and the only thing he could do was to repeat the only word.  
  
_“Where?”_

***

  
  
This world looked a lot like the real one comparing with the empty office. At least the hospital was quite real. When Stanley woke up again, the same nurse was in front of him; she seemed to be changing his I.V. fluids. She touched his hand lightly, and her fingers felt incredibly warm and soft. Stanley has only just realized how long it’s been since he’d touched a real person.  
  
“Good afternoon, doctor.”  
“Good afternoon, Lisa. Visit the fifth one as you go.”  
  
_That voice…_  
The man tried to lift his head and look at the second person who entered the room, but the nurse put him down softly but firmly.  
  
“No sudden moves,” she whispered kindly, putting Stanley’s head down on the pillow. “You wanna get better, right?”  
She disappeared from his field of view, giving way to the doctor. The woman had curling pitch black hair with a pin on the back of her head. Her face was absolutely new to Stanley… except maybe for her thin mouthline.  
  
“So, mister Hopkins. How do you find yourself after a lingering walk on thin ice?” she smiled, and her voice together with her smile couldn’t keep Stanley from an obvious idea. But he kept it to himself. He tried to build up a sentence to find out his whereabouts, the Narrator’s state and what’s happened, but his tongue only behaved at the very start.  
“W… where…”  
“Wait, don’t answer. You must be…” the woman paused, “must be wondering where… your wife is?”  
  
So it was a wife after all. For some reason Stanley has completely lost interest in all this. But she was still a human being who got into trouble with him.  
  
“Olivia Hopkins died at the scene. I’m sorry to bring you the bad news as soon as you woke up from coma… But I think that’s better.”  
  
Stanley closed his eyes. The doctor’s concerns were useless, oddly enough. He wasn’t shaken with the news as much as he was supposed to be. So her name was Olivia… The woman he’d completely forgot during his comatose state. For a split second he doubted if she’d existed at all.  
  
A sudden wave of weakness pinned him down and he passed out, unable to ask anything. He didn’t feel nurse Lisa fussing around him, injecting him with something… But he could very clearly hear the Woman in White speaking in his head, the master of an empty office with a forced restart lever behind her back.


	10. Him

**_“Farewell, Stanley!” cried the Narrator…_**  
  
He woke up in a cold sweat, not entirely realizing where the border between dream and reality was. Dreams were too true and unwilling to let him go, just like his protracted comatose state.  
  
The woman with black pinned hair told him that he spent eight days in a coma. Such a short period of time… Walking around the corridors and being in void took infinitely more – several months if not years.  
She also said he was on the mend. That his head trauma still requires some recovery but shorter than estimated time. Stanley didn’t know whether he should’ve been happy or sad about this. He didn’t care.  
  
He slept a lot and kept seeing the same dream. He wandered around an empty office building completely aimlessly; he didn’t want to find anyone and no one told him what to do. He was on his own. Just like… in the escape pod ending.  
Out of all endings that happened in the Narrator’s game, this one took a special place. Because he never responded to it. Stanley knew why: he just couldn’t respond to something unknown to him. It was incredible how the story he’s created has him wrapped around its finger so many times. He hardly planned that. And how angry he was getting upon finding out Stanley acted against the scenario… Must be very upsetting when your creation doesn’t abide the rules created for it.  
  
Once upon a time, the doctor came to him with questions different from usual state of health checking. She fixed his pillow and sat by his side as she usually did on visiting.  
  
“Stanley, I’ve got a serious question for you.”  
He looked at her with a tint of surprise that only reflected in his gaze. This woman had astonishingly blue eyes, but their color was lost in the hospital room, making her eyes look glasslike grey. The first raindrops sounded outside, and the atmosphere became completely colorless.  
“Most people after coming out of coma change their attitude. They try to become more optimistic, take all they can if there’s a second chance given for them.”  
  
She looked outside, and her eye color faded entirely, mixing with reflection of grey sky.  
“But you. Every time I come down, your head is in the clouds. You’re thinking about something else. There’s an abyss of despair in your eyes.”  
Stanley caught her gaze – piercing but fortunately with no wish to eradicate him. On the contrary.  
  
“I… I don’t know why I should live,” he said in half-whisper, as if something was keeping him from speaking louder. Perhaps he found it pointless to do so.  
  
The woman frowned. She kept silence for several minutes. It was pressing on him; when you’re alone and not talking, it had no effect, but somebody else keeping silence was just depressing.  
“Is it because of your late wife?” the doctor finally asked. Stanley closed his eyes and tilted his head as much as the pillow allowed that. “Do you have other family you can come back to?”  
“They… have nothing to do with me.”  
  
Suddenly the woman moved in closer and covered the patient’s hand with her own. Her fingers felt like made of metal and covered with a thin layer of human skin. Not like the Narrator at all…  
  
“Listen to me. You must be completely honest with me. The more you tell me, the sooner I’ll help you with it.”  
Her voice became closer and lower; she began whispering.  
“Tell me what’s happened to you. I’m not talking about the scene that pushed you into coma. I’m talking about the coma itself. What’s happened there, what did you see?”  
  
Stanley kept his eyes closed. It was easier this way. She was clearly burning him through with her blue eyes.  
He reflected on whether it would be wise to talk about the Narrator to someone else. Wouldn’t he just be considered a lunatic? A man in coma is deprived of all activity, and his case was filled with bullshit. But this woman, her voice… reminded Stanley of the one he heard in the room after being crashed to death with a press. There must’ve been a reason behind all this…  
  
“Alright. Think it over, please. If you get worse, I’ll ask it again.”  
  
She pulled away, stood up and left the room, lifting the veil of cold mist from the man. Only then did Stanley open his eyes. Nothing changed in the room: the same grey-blue walls, white bedsheets, small TV on the nightstand… and rain behind a half-curtained window.

 

***

“Mister Hopkins? Good morning, time to take the meds.”  
Lisa slipped through the door, not waiting for an answer. The local patient was always calm and indifferent towards events around him, never spoke against the medicine to take and so on.  
  
“I’ll switch on the TV to lighten the mood, you okay with this?”  
Stanley shrugged idly. It’s been a long since he’d seen a TV program for the last time; he knew absolutely nothing about the world situation and wasn’t really interested. He didn’t notice the magic box already working and broadcasting some sort of a news program.  
  
“They say another default’s coming,” the nurse said, attaching a fresh pack of saline to his I.V. Stanley turned his head to face her.  
“Who says?”  
“Huh?.. Oh, lots of people. When did you watch the… ah, yes. No, it’s been around for a long time, long before you ended up here…”  
  
Lisa went on speculating about financial problems and little knowledge of the crowd about it, but the man wasn’t listening anymore. His attention was drawn to the last news on the screen.  
  
_“…went missing. We remind you that on the 12 th of September, at approximately 7-30 A.M. on Highway 2 a bus has been blown up by a suicide bomber. Forty-two people affected, three found dead at the scene, nineteen heavily wounded. Among the injured ones is the famous writer…”_  
  
“It’s the blast you’ve suffered! You’re lucky to be alive, someone died right there,” the nurse lamented, silencing the newsreader.  
  
_“…was taken to the emergency ward unconscious, his condition is still kept in secret by hospital. Next on: economics…”_  
  
Happy to see her favorite topic, the girl moved a chair closer to herself and sat down in front of the TV; Stanley on the contrary wasn’t listening anymore. Some famous writer was on the same bus. He was badly injured and taken to emergency ward. Could be the one in this hospital…  
  
“Lisa,” he spoke unsteadily, “how many people were taken here after the explosion?”  
“Along with you? Can’t really say, maybe five. They’re all in rooms next to yours.”  
“Were there any men?”  
“Yep, there was one. He wasn’t injured though; it’s not why they took him to emergency.”  
“Why then?”  
“Because… hey, why should I tell you that? It’s medical confidentiality, you know.” She got up, turned off the TV and escaped to her own business.  
  
For the first time after the lingering idle apathy, Stanley lit up with an idea. This man could be the writer, and… Doesn’t matter how their paths crossed in comatose condition – the main thing was the chance to find him again!  
The patient wasn’t left alone for a long time: the black-haired woman dressed in white lab coat came down again with the same questions. This time he went ahead of her.  
  
“Doctor, please tell me something, the man who was brought here with me, where did you put him? Do you remember him?”  
“Y-yes, yes of course I do,” she stuttered a little. “Why do you need this?”  
“It’s… it’s important for my mental condition,” Stanley spit out, raising a bit from his pillow and making the woman come closer immediately. “Please tell me… It’s very important.”  
  
She sighed and sat near him on the chair, the one from which the nurse was praising Stanley’s luck not long ago.  
  
“Your mental condition is what worries me the most,” she said with a tint of sadness in her voice, smiling lightly with a corner of her mouth. Stanley remembered the gesture: it was the last thing he saw before the restart lever fell down.

“Don’t worry. I’ll swallow every pill you give.”  
  
He looked into the doctor’s eyes. Before, when it was raining, they seemed transparently grey, but now sun was shining, piercing the curtains and painting her eyes’ iris blue. This woman seemed endlessly sorrowful. With such gaze and soft smile, one only tells you about passing away. How many times has she done this?  
  
“He was lying in the room next to yours. Right there.” She nodded towards the wall behind Stanley’s head. “In the same fashion, head to this wall.”  
“Why… why ‘was lying’? What’s happened to him?” The woman averted her gaze, and Stanley thought of the inevitable. “Please don’t sugarcoat it… Say as it is.”  
  
He was ready to spring out of his bed and run to find facts out on his own: that’s how excited he was about the news… But he didn’t have to run anywhere. Here she was, the perfect informer, right in front of him. Stanley braced himself for the worst.

" _You see, he’s…”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At first I had two versions of ending this fic and I couldn't decide which one to choose, but then I've had an idea of letting the reader choose for oneself!  
> The next one is the Good Ending, and the last one is the Bad Ending. Choose wisely!


	11. The Good Ending

“He’s vanished the day before you woke up.”  
  
Stanley blinked.  
“Vanished? From a hospital?..”  
“Different things happen.”  
The woman wrapped her lab coat sharply. She didn’t seem to like the topic.  
  
“Were you looking for him?”  
“As much as I know, the surveillance feed went missing that day. And medical staff swears they’d seen nothing and no one.”  
“Maybe he was stolen by someone…”  
_“Stolen?”_ she repeated mockingly. “He’s rather got everyone into his plan. You didn’t see the way he talked to nurses. Hypnotizing.”  
  
Her voice sounded upset, but deep inside her gaze a darting glimmer lit up, as if this enterprise didn’t put her into any sort of trouble, and on the contrary she was happy that it happened.  
“But… how… how can we find him now?” Stanley said, clearly lost. “How…”  
“Why’d you want to look for him?” the woman wondered. “How is your mental condition connected to this man? Maybe you’re going to tell me what’s happened?”  
  
It was considerably hard to put Stanley’s trip in sentences, but he gave it a try. Everything that remained bottled up for several months of his inner time: enclosed spaces, dysfunctional computers, offices stuffed with cameras, according to the plot… Cargo lifts, secret codes, Adventure Line, the Narrator losing track of his own scenario… Somewhere at the point of his appearance in the story, the woman smiled, not hiding it, and a cunning smile hasn’t left her face after.  
  
“Well, that’s pretty interesting,” she turned around, her mood still clearly uplifted. Stanley didn’t quite understand why she was so happy, but he left it to facts unknown to him.  
“There’s one more thing…”  
“Yes?” she turned around and tried to make a serious face. “What is it?”  
“I saw a woman whose face I didn’t remember. But her voice was… incredibly like yours.” The man squinted with suspicion. The doctor tried hard to hide her smile, but it wasn’t enough, and she eventually gave up.  
“Wow,” she uttered with some weight. “Must be because you heard my voice while being in coma. It happens sometimes. My voice got into your mind purely by incident.”  
  
She got up, still smiling; this happy expression seriously improved her face, fully clearing the sorrow it carried just a while ago while she was telling Stanley about his neighbor. At the door, she turned around one final time and said:  
“Don’t think about anything and get well soon.”  
Then she disappeared.

***

  
  
Unfortunately for Stanley, his world hasn’t become way more colorful after receiving these facts. He was still mostly bedridden, he couldn’t stay on his feet for more than half an hour, and it depressed him incredibly. If previously he was able to sit at his working place for the whole day with a lunch break, now even usual pastime costed too much effort.  
His release from the hospital didn’t really lighten the situation. Although one whole month passed and he could stand on his feet without passing out, one thing didn’t go anywhere.  
  
_Void._  
  
It wasn’t so noticeable before. Work didn’t give him a lot of time for his personal life, even though his job wasn’t very mind-breaking; he was often working overtime on weekends and didn’t care about holidays and other pastime activities. Stanley poorly remembered why he’d even marry someone if his job was enough to take up his whole life. Some people said… that he needed to change something in his life. That’s why he’s married the first one who agreed to.  
  
For as long as he knew himself, he couldn’t name any movie, music album or composition to stand out for him. He considered all this nothing, that he should better work or sleep a couple of hours overtime. During the first couple of months, his wife was trying to instill him anything about art. She gave him a book by some author who’d only become famous lately, but she adored his early works. Back then, one year ago, Stanley nodded in silence, listening to her book advices…   
  
Now, Olivia was gone, and he was kind of glad she was. He’s changed his life, following someone’s lead, but it didn’t make him happier. He became closer to the crowd. He didn’t even know if he loved her for that year they’d lived together. It was hard to understand anything in his life at all – maybe because of the head trauma or because of befallen realization that everything was pointless and even, and any attempts to change anything will only result in disturbing the environment and nothing else.  
  
Stanley got out of the taxi, threw some spare pennies for the driver, took his backpack and sighed deeply. The car left, tires steering, and he stayed in front of the entrance door. It’s been a while since he visited. He shoved his hand into backpack pocket for the key and fetched a folded paper. Sure, the drug receipts.  
He’s got a whole bunch of them, and he couldn’t even make out names of the medicine he had to take. However, the unknown didn’t scare him.  
  
The flat on seventh floor was empty; of course, no one else had access here. Olivia’s belongings were still at the police department, and he was to retrieve them one day.  
Stanley wondered whether he should enter the flat. He fiddled with the key in his hands, then opened the door, put the backpack down on the floor… then turned away and left, not locking the door.  
  
Staying there was pointless. It really was completely empty: Olivia was constantly out of home, and Stanley could forget to come home from work, so even flowers wouldn’t survive in this environment. No need to save anyone from thirst and hunger in an empty living block.  
  
Stanley walked down the stairs. He remembered the doctor’s warning to take things easy but not to sit at home for the whole day. An ideal version would be strolling around some parks at morning and evening. Stanley tried to erase the thoughts of turning into an old man with a stick, walking around and living out the rest of his life. He lacked a stick though.  
  
He saw nothing interesting in the park. It was too late for dog guys and parents with strollers. Stanley spent around an hour there, trying to escape being haunted by thoughts of bureaucracy awaiting him at work and the police… He was given a paid leave, so he didn’t have to worry about work. Up until full recovery. Olivia’s documents and burying can wait… It can all wait.  
  
_“Call me later, I’m hiding my ass from ad guys.”_  
  
Stanley heard this piece of conversation from a passerby in a bright red raincoat. The voice hit his ears, and he stopped instantly.  
  
**_It’s him,_** he heard the Woman say loud and clear.  
  
During the month he’d spent in hospital after finding out about his enigmatic neighbor, this man visited his mind from time to time. It was impossible to forget him like that. Deep inside, Stanley still hoped to meet the person he named the Narrator. He couldn’t just be a figment of his sick imagination…  
  
While Stanley stood and digested everything heard and thought, the man passed him by, phone already turned off. The employee simply stood and watched him go, passively imagining how he’d look like: before that, he was walking face down and didn’t see the stranger’s face.  
  
For unknown reason, at that exact moment he decided that upon coming home he’ll take that very book Olivia recommended him. That it’s time to pay attention to advices from the past.  
Maybe it would help him sort out the present.

***

Every next day, coming back to reality was harder. Not because Stanley suffered from sleep deprivation – his schedule was operating perfectly like a Swiss watch. Waking up was harder because of the dream sequences.  
Their context hasn’t changed much. Same locations and events, same enclosed hopelessness. But Stanley didn’t want to give it up, he played them again and again in hope to hear from the Narrator once more. Maybe he’d said something extra that would help the employee unveil the mystery around his personality… But time went infinitely faster in dreams, and Stanley was waking up exactly when it seemed to him that he came close to the solution. A little more… and more… and the next time he’ll be sure to capture the truth.  
  
But the next time replicates the previous one. _The_ _end_ _is_ _never_ _the_ _end_ _._  
  
He accepts this with anguish, gets up from his bed and goes to take his meds.  
_Quit_ _these_ _pills_ _,_ the voice in his head says. _You're_ _not_ _sick_ _._  
Stanley doesn’t listen and eats three pills in one gulp.  
_You take them to get better, you say? But you’ll get back to the condition before the accident. Blank mind condition. This is not getting better._  
  
The voice in his head became his new neighbor a couple of days after returning home. Its timbre was pretty much similar the the Narrator’s, but it surely wasn't him, that's what Stanley knew. The Narrator would be worrying about losing the track of his story, not his ward’s well-being.  
Since then, he’s heard this voice practically from every place broadcasting words. Stanley didn’t often interact with living people; he pushed documents bureaucracy away for the time being, explaining it with his recovery and his spirits not uplifted enough. As soon as he gets better, he’ll come back to all this stuff.  
  
He treated his job and weekday chaff as something positive while he didn’t concentrate on it. That’s why he thought less about it. Generally, thoughts of his life before the accident brought him purely negative emotions. Perhaps it would be more convenient for him to have posttraumatic amnesia. He could start a new life with no remembrance of the old one. He wouldn’t care about forgetting most of it… Honestly, there wasn’t a lot he knew.  
  
_You can’t escape your problems forever. Stand up and make a choice you won’t be ashamed of._  
  
This voice kept quoting the book Stanley has read on advice of late Olivia. On reading it, an obsessive feeling entangled him, and at approximately the middle, he realized what it was: the writing style reminded him of the Narrator. Not because of absolute control over the story flow and characters – that’s what every writer was capable of, and Stanley realized that in his office walkthroughs it was honestly defying common sense. If he was angry with the Narrator for his sarcastic comments, threats and insults before, now he understood it to be natural. No author would like their creation to act against the script written for it? Of course, the author would get angry. They would do anything in their power to keep the character on plot and make them a docile marionette. Because they were created from head to toes and belonged to the author and his will.  
  
The reasoning were often brought to Stanley by the pseudo-Narrator’s voice, as if he was talking about his relationship with his own characters, agreed with himself… in short, doing his usual deeds. From the very comeback, Stanley had a haunting feeling of someone else being near him. The man surely knew this couldn’t be true: he had the only set of keys, and no one would’ve put any monitoring equipment in his flat… And what’s here to watch? His lonesome pathetic existence? He blamed these thoughts on the medicine he took properly after release from the hospital; maybe they had such a side effect like being paranoid?..  
  
And maybe the empty flat was just driving him insane.  
Enduring an invisible presence of someone else in his head wasn’t so easy. Stanley got used to it while being in coma, but he was now in real life and this sort of neighborhood was inexcusable. The last thing he wanted was to take it seriously, like a disease and not a foul addition to life.

***

This morning, Stanley exited his house with a burning desire for the first time. First, buy a book on psychological diseases; second, find something else written by that famous author. One must say that for the last few years, Stanley was bying things because it was necessary and not to satisfy himself anyhow. Need to buy groceries. Need to buy a locker. Need to buy more paper. Need to… need, need to buy, not want to buy.  
  
The bookstore was just a couple of districts down the street, through the park and to the left. During those two weeks that Stanley walked around the park, nothing’s changed. Only did November expose the trees, making the environment a lot hollower. But the employee’s lonely flat was way emptier anyway. He even thought about having a pet; Olivia was allergic to wool, so this variant was out of discussion before, but now…  
  
_“_ _Stanley_ _?_ _Is_ _that_ _you_ _?_ _”_  
  
Losing himself in thoughts about cat stands and food bowls, he noticed nothing around. The voice in his head became a pretty bearable companion, so he didn’t pay attention to it.  
  
_“_ _Please_ _wait_ _!”_  
  
Only that this time it sounded way more natural and not inside his head at all, but rather somewhere nearby. He stopped dead in his tracks and turned right.  
Right in front of him, a man rested on a bench. He was dressed fairly lightly for November, but there was one single thing that stood out in his image. A raincoat, red like arterial blood.  
  
_“I finally caught you here!”_  
  
The voice resonated in his head, mixing the words; he understood nothing but the fact that the voice was real this time. Stanley felt the ground falling out from beneath him, and the stranger’s last words ringed in his ears, fading out.  
  
  
  
_“…_ _please_ _,_ _Stanley_ _!_ _Don_ _’_ _t_ _leave_ _me_ _as_ _soon_ _as_ _I_ _’_ _ve_ _found_ _you_ _!”_  
  
Now the voice was worried. As if its life depended on Stanley. He opened his eyes carefully; it was a cloudy day, but light hit his eyes anyway. His head was buzzing like he’s just waken up from anesthesia, his hands were numb… He’d never lost consciousness like that before, and this first experience felt awful.  
  
Pulling himself together, he realized he was lying on a bench in the same park, and the stranger wasn’t sitting but standing above him, trying to revive him and wailing.  
“I’m alright, I…” Stanley spoke weakly, trying to rise from the bench. “I’ll live, but please… Tell me, are you real? It’s not an illusion, right?”  
  
He sat up through some pain, and the man in red raincoat squatted in front of him.  
  
“I think it’s not. If it was an illusion, than it’d be a really good one, because I find myself very real right now.”  
He laughed heartily, like a child, and touched Stanley’s hand. The employee jerked; his hand was cold but surprisingly soft. What was the last time someone held his hand? In the hospital, where he lay in bed like a vegetable?..  
“Ah,” he could only say. The stranger smiled and sat down on the bench next to him.  
  
“You may not believe me, but I lack words to express everything I want to tell you,” he started. “Although words are my weapon and my first outline is transforming all my thoughts into words… But that’s how it is.”  
“I’ve got the same problem, it’s okay,” Stanley answered quietly, staring at his knees. Then he looked at his companion in wonder. “Why are words your weapon?”  
“Ah, you haven’t guessed yet? I’m a writer,” he shrugged. “A somewhat famous one. But my literature isn’t for everyone, I agree.”

“Literature…”  
  
Stanley suddenly remembered why he’d got outside today, the book and its style resembling the Narrator so much… He took off the backpack and retrieved the book; his bench neighbor lit up upon seeing it.  
  
“So you’ve read some of it! I’m flattered, Stanley, I really am. How’s this one for you?”  
“Honestly?..” the employee made a face. “It didn’t make any sense.”  
  
His interlocutor stared at him with an indefinite emotion on his face, and Stanley felt really awkward because of the criticism he was never good at, but then the other man laughed, and the moment passed.  
“I agree. In the beginning of my creative career, I was writing pure gibberish, truth be told. But some famous people liked what I wrote, and now I’m known around the country… Maybe farther.”  
  
Stanley glanced at the book cover. He paid attention to the author’s name back when he first took the book because he’d never seen such name before. The last name was regular, on the contrary.  
  
“So your name is Kevan,” he spoke to the side. “Funny, I got used to something different.”

“To what?” the man in raincoat asked.

“I’ve always called you the Narrator.”  
  
Silence hung. Both men seemed to fight their urge to spit out something unwanted and tried to construct their questions so that they’d do without ambiguity and insults… It was easier for Stanley, as his questions weren’t that hard to answer.  
  
“Tell me what’s happened to you. Why you’d found yourself on that bus, why you’ve been in coma not because of the explosion unlike me… Why’d you left the hospital and wanted to see me again. Just… tell me everything.”  
“Heh. I expected you to ask something like that…”  
  
The Narrator reclined a bit and put his hands behind his head.  
“My life story isn’t that great. As I’ve already mentioned, I’m a writer. People like me suffer from tides of inspiration rocking back and forth. So, a few months ago I’d fallen into a back tide. I wanted to create and picture something but I couldn’t do anything. I just… just did and didn’t exist at the same time.”  
“That’s probably called writer’s block,” Stanley muttered.  
“Yeah, you’re right. But it was so dreadful this time that I decided to take extreme measures. Namely psychedelic drugs. But it didn’t help. I fell into despair. It couldn’t last for long, and once upon a time I decided to take all I had, swallow it and wait for death to come after me. That’s what I did. Then I thought that dying alone in my flat would be boring, so I went out for a walk. I took a bus, crowded with people; it was early in the morning, a weekday. On boarding I already felt myself losing it. Don’t know when it ended, but it was certainly before the explosion.”  
  
Stanley shivered, remembering the incident. He didn’t find out more info about it; he couldn’t care less. The important thing was that all this had passed and left him alone.  
  
“I woke up in the dark. I thought I was in a purgatory, because suicides don’t go to heaven, and I didn’t deserve going to hell – at least I hoped so. A table appeared in front of me. I think I’ve already told you what happened next…”  
“Not long before you disappeared,” Stanley confirmed.  
“Yep. So I suddenly found an urge to work. An urge to write, to create something, and not only just that – the material was right in front of me! As if by magic, a story appeared in my mind. Its main character was an office employee named Stanley. Even his appearance was brought to me at the same moment. At least I thought it did; it’s now that I can see who gave me such idea. Then, as I wrote the story and read it aloud, my records changed themselves in front of my eyes. I thought it was just fiddling with my imagination, but they didn’t stop, so I decided to fix it and add some more plotlines where my character was going off track. The further it went, the more he acted on his own. Of course, every time I fumed and fretted, talking to him like it was his fault. This abstract creature’s. I couldn’t possibly think of anyone else behind him.”  
  
The Narrator fell silent, taking breath and fixing his glasses. For Stanley, he was still associated with this title, and he couldn’t pair him up with a real name and person.  
  
“Later it hit me, of course. After you’ve killed yourself with a box cutter… almost killed, to be precise, I became pretty worried. No kidding. I didn’t give my character any suicidal tendencies, I’d never suggest that he’d behave like that. That’s why I came to only logical conclusion: this wasn’t my Stanley. I tried to contact you back there, at the chair room. I even got somewhere, ha. But it was that moment that I felt myself torn away, taken from my workplace… All I could express was my sincere will to find real you.”  
  
He faced Stanley with a smile, and he, eyeing his companion before, didn’t stand that and looked down.  
  
“Then I woke in the hospital. I felt like trash. But still better than before I took up a gulp of medical crap. They told me I've suffered coma toxicum because of all I swallowed. That I’ve barely made it. Can’t say I was real happy about it, but here we are. If life gave me a second chance to wake up and live, maybe something had to happen? And I decided not to wait before the press gets me; I decided to hide as soon as possible. It wasn’t hard. But even after I got society off my tail, there was still something worrying me. I couldn’t get rid of the thought that I talked to a living person in comatose state.”  
“Me too,” Stanley echoed quietly, still looking down.  
“Heh. Therefore, I contacted the medical staff; I even spoke to my former doctor. In the end, I found out that there was a man beyond the wall who was still in coma when I escaped, but he’s already woken up. And this woman told me secretly that he was bothered by similar symptoms. But she gave me no info about your address and so on, only your full name. Well, there’s not much people called like you, moreover in that hospital. After seeing you in this park, I decided to spend different parts of day here when I could. I hoped to see you again, and I got lucky."  
  
He put his hands back on his knees with a feeling of conclusion to his story.

“In the end, I promised to come back for you. So I did.”  
  
A thick wall of milky fog blurred Stanley’s mind. Despite the story of a man in a red raincoat, it was still hard for him to understand anything and explain it to himself. And the Narrator must’ve had questions towards him as well.  
  
“Allow me to ask you something in turn.”  
“…huh? Yes?” the man jerked and looked up at his companion.  
“Did you like my story?”  
  
The question caught him off guard. He didn’t think about it since the moment he woke up from coma.  
“How do I say that… When you pass through the same things in attempt to change something and get out, it becomes a bit dull. But it helped me understand something important.” He made a short pause. The Narrator eyed him, inquiring. “I saw my work from the outside. I’m an office worker too. A simple database programmer. And I can’t remember anything bright to happen to me that I’d keep close to my soul, because I wasted all my life on working. Constant occupation kept me in peace, and so I thought that it had to stay this way. I didn’t need anything else but sitting in front of a computer, pressing buttons and getting paid.”  
“You want to say that it’s not true?” the Narrator asked in conspiratorial tone, inching closer and literally eating him alive with his gaze.  
  
But it was way easier to withstand than the one of Woman in White. It was completely painless.  
“It was the cruelest misconception of mine. Now, as I’m home and far from work, I understand: my flat is my soul. Just as empty and nondescript. I’m a good employee but a horrible person. People like me won’t be remembered after death. I wouldn’t be surprised if no one’d visit me in hospital if I stayed in comatose.”  
   
The Narrator’s book was still in his hands. The employee glanced at it and put it back into his bag.  
“Your story had shown me where to move. I… I’m really grateful for this. If only you don’t vanish into air right now, being a figment of my imagination…”  
  
He staggered to fall onto his neighbor’s shoulder, but instead felt cold tough hands embracing his shoulder.  
  
“Do you take any medicine, Stanley?” the voice asked right above his ear. He nodded. “Then these are wrong and you should quit living alone.”  
“I wanted to get a cat… But in the sight of latest events I might have to get a friend instead.”  
“Ha ha, come on!” The hands holding him trembled along with their owner. “You can get both. Who’s to blame you? It’s your life.”  
“True… who’s to blame me,” Stanley spoke, evidently lost.  
  
Hands felt a bit heavy on his shoulders, but it wasn’t a burden, and he was as calm as ever. Better than at his long-left working place, better than alone in an armchair with a book…  
“Kevan,” he said unexpectedly for himself, “do you want some tea?”  
“That’s something,” his companion glanced at him with a tint of surprise. “I do. But what about your stuff? You were heading somewhere until I called for you.”

“My stuff…” He must’ve wanted to buy some books? Why would he need them now, as he’d acquired something way more valuable? “What are you talking about, what kind of business in the morning?”

“Okay, whatever you say!”  
  
He laughed sonorous and freely, and even Stanley wanted to smile after that. This action was completely forgotten, and he felt himself in a situation back in coma when he tried to speak up. But the barrier was destroyed instantly.  
  
“Oh, so you can be emotional too!” the Narrator snickered, freeing Stanley from his embrace and getting up from the bench. “Okay. Bring me wherever you want.”  
  
That’s how they have set off – a not completely recovered office employee in a leather jacket and a freedom loving writer in an autumn-colored raincoat. The wind blew through, disheveling the author's thick wavy hair, but it didn’t discourage him at all, and he kept talking about something in his habitual excited manner.  
  
“Stanley, there’s something I wanted to tell you. I’ve told my game-making friends about this story, and they became so inspired that they decided to make a video game about it! They wrote me the other day saying that they want my scenario and my narrative voice to keep the atmosphere. They needed a player model though. So I thought that it must be you by means of canon! You were the first player, the first story tester in fact. Well, we’ll sort it out later anyway…”  
  
They walked along the boulevard covered with fallen leaves, and it usually seemed endless to Stanley, but this time he just didn’t pay attention. He just went hand in hand with the man who was taking up his mind for so long; he tried to calm his conscience with reassurance that this time it’s all true, just as real as the leaves shuffling under their feet.  
  
And, still not fully aware of that, _Stanley was happy._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is almost as long as the sum of all others. Good grief!  
> The Narrator's name is an obvious reference to his voice actor Kevan Brighting. About the 'unusual' name - I'm Russian myself and haven't heard or seen the name Kevan anywhere before playing The Stanley Parable, so that's kind of self-insert experience.


	12. The Bad Ending

“He died the day before you woke up.”


End file.
